Onslow : Strategic Thinker
The Tory Earl of Onslow and the LibDem's Lord Holme were on Today this morning discussing the Lords Constitution Committee's call for an end to the Government’s unfettered power to deploy British troops abroad.
Onslow pointed out that if France were to attack Dover we would need to respond quickly and there would not be time for a debate in the commons. Exactly.
All the more reason Guido thinks for Britain to develop a truly independent of the Yanks short-range nuclear deterrent. Onslow knows...
Onslow pointed out that if France were to attack Dover we would need to respond quickly and there would not be time for a debate in the commons. Exactly.
All the more reason Guido thinks for Britain to develop a truly independent of the Yanks short-range nuclear deterrent. Onslow knows...
36 comments:
Glad to see their lordships making sense. Been expecting an invasion from France...ooh... any day now.
Won't the entente go on being cordiale for as long as so many piles of stones in the French countryside are owned by British MPs, barristers and industrialists? I mean, how tiresome would it be not to be able to spend the summer at your place in the Dordogne because France was at war with Britain. Anyway, I'd rather have Dominic de Villepin as our PM any day, instead of the Spineless One.
It's Lord Holme (of Cheltenham), not Lord Home. The latter is of course a bona fide Tory.
Onslow is a contrarian, but always has a very good point. He's very likeable and did a good turn a few years ago on Radio 2 hosting a series into new types of music, eg Garage and Jungle. The Tories should wheel him out more often.
Hillhunt: You just cant trust them frenchies - they migt have been lying low for 200 years but never discount their cunning ...
If we can finish a game of bowls before going off to kick the Spanish Armada, of course we've got time for a debate in the Commons! :)
(Yes, I know the story is apocryphal)
could we not pre-empt such a threat by exporting Prezza disguised as beef?. Timed to explode on arrival in Paris.simple. 2 for the price of one. On the other hand who would get on our case, RSPCA & the Greens!!
Holme not Home corrected thanks...
I was in Canterbury at the weekend. It seemed that the invasion has already started.
However this country is so buzy watching Big Brother, they havent noticed Big Brother is now watching them. So does anyone think a invasion from France would even be noticed?
We might still be able to relie on our sense of smell. Look for damp smelly patches in your highstreet.
1. The Commons would still need to be called to mobilise the fencibles (aka the TA), unless it's offset against the fortnightly annual camp or a training weekend.
2. We could hold 'em long enough for Prescott to phone Blair for the nuclear codes for a preemptive strike on strategic vineyards, bicycle factories, and mime artists.
3. Perhaps this is why we are getting a uniformed border guard, to repel the Buonapartistes at passport control?
Lee
France has been attacking Dover every night for several years, using third-world asylum seekers as canon fodder. Until now, nuclear retaliation would have been deemed 'disproportionate'. but that word has recently been excised from the diplomatic lexicon. Cry Havoc...
Time for a preemptive strike on Paris! A little less conversation, a little more action please...
French drop nuclear bomb on Dover, does £15.00 worth of damage.
The French don't need to invade, they already dominate us by their proxies in the European Commission.So when we get our, Guido recommended, independent nuclear deterrent I would like to nominate Brussels as the recipient of our first pre-emptive strike!
If they play this game the Govt will just invoke The Civil Contingencies Act and dismiss Parliament.
Parliament cannot even read the legislation it passes in the normal course of events, they are incompetent to decide on military deployment.
Most wars in the past started in August/September after the harvest was gathered in - when most of the MoPs are still out shooting and fishing or fornicating in some French gite.
The short-range Prescott propelled with a British-patented rubber band catapult would be a fearsome shock-and-awe weapon if fired at Calais. He'd flatten everything within miles (though actually it's pretty flat already).
The real terror would be unleashed once Prescott started to speak. In French.
(BTW The border guard uniforms are coming in because illegal immigrants have complained that when they arrive here they don't know to whom they should give themselves up, as no one's wearing uniform. Very frustrating.)
Well the way things are going in this country, what with all this Blair and Prescott, and all this European business, well. I liked things more back in the old days.
At the last general election, Dover's Tories pledged to privatise the port authority and then sell it the to French! Gwyn Prosser stood on a 'save Dover' campaign and was re-elected. I'm sure that once Tony tells him to sell it, the French can have another flutter.
What Lord Onslow didn't mention, was if France invaded Dover, the UK government would probably be obliged to assist them under article Article 224 of the European Treaty
.
I don't mean to be blonde, but why would we be deploying troops abroad if the French attacked Dover?
Wouldn't we be deploying troops to the south coast of England?
Please excuse me if my poor, female mind is missing something...
what would be the point of france attacking us?
Although if they did July or August would be the best time as we are all usualy over there living in our French houses and our Army is rather busy at the moment,perhaps we could do a swap, they all come here and we have france?
I shall have to look out for panic buying of White flags as a sign the frogs are planning an invasion.
The Lord Onslow (whose family effectively ruled Guildford for quite a few centuries) is a delightful man to talk to, but quite an "unguided missile" when it comes to politics. Also he is incapable of talking quietly, as we discovered the last time "Any Questions" came to Guildford and he was in the invited audience. Possibly the invitation will not be repeated.....
No Rick, before the harvest was gathered in. It was later in those days and the farmers had run out of dosh.
Doesn't take the brains of Britain to work out a compromise where the government had discretion to use troops within British territories and coastal waters but not outside, would it? Glad strategic minds are at play.
As Guido rightly points out our "Nuclear Deterrent" is hardly independent.When the axis of evil were heoically invading Afghanistan because the taliban wouldn`t let the U.S. run a pipe-line through their country one of our Nuclear Subs heroically bombarded Kabul from 1000 miles away.Obviously the legendary might of the Afghan Army,Navy and Airforce warranted this but the point is that in the Plymouth Evening Herald a local Sailor stated specifically that British Subs were under the direct command of American Forces at the time.Either he was wrong or once again Britain is being treated as America`s bitch.Arguable which is the most glorious episode in the history of these multi-million pound killing machines,the long-range blitz of Afghan civilians(as admitted the day after "precision bombing had been claimed)or the sinking of a retreating troop ship.Brittania rules the waves indeed.
I would have thought we needed tactical nukes to seal off the Channel Tunnel when the alien hordes reach Calais.
Perhaps the noble Lord is unaware that under the treaty agreement with the French regarding the Tunnel the French have the right to station their soliders at the BRITISH end of the tunnel. Thus his fears may not be so unjustified. Besides, our 'auld enemy' has always been France.
having had a couple of hours to digest this article, and visited The area behind Dover Sea front. I fink the frogs or someone has already bombed Dover. It appears that the arrival of Tumbleweed from Yankee land is imminent. Could a kind soul imform our MP, he says I'm rude.
French attacking Britain....what a stupid idea.
However, an independent deterrent is essential.....a) for status and b) for protecting Europe....suppose someone has to do it!
Isn't the way they do it in the US that the President can mobilise the military in an emergency but has to get permission in retrospect shortly afterwards? (Although I don't see why a law couldn't deal differently with attacking foreign soil and defending British territory.)
Moko, the subs that were used to 'bomb' Kabul were using cruise missiles, therefore had conventional warheads. They would have been under US control, i.e. their targets would have been alloted by the overall commander, who would have been an American officer. If this had not been done, it would have meant, target confusion, i.e. the same targets would have been obliterated by missiles fired by both US/UK submarines.
Trident submarines, nuclear warheads, normally are under the command of the Senior NATO Officer Europe, also an American, his deputy is always British. If the decision is taken to use Nuclear weapons against a foe, which has invaded Europe, UK subs would fire to hit targets allocated in advance by NATO, this is probably, now unlikely. There is a proviso, that if the UK ever found itself, threatend, by a nuclear armed power, in which neither the US or any other NATO power was involved, it could act independently, this scenario, is very unlikely even inconcievable.
How independent, the British deterrent is has always been a difficult area. There probably is, although it is never been disclosed, instructions to submarine commanders on what to do, if a war occurs and communications disrupted to submarines, would commanders be given prior instructions as to whether to launch or not. If they are told, to launch even in doubt, then the deterrent, is probably more independent than we think!
Of course if the missiles are launched, it is no longer a deterrent.
Anon 3;52 you are obviously well informed, well informed enough to know that "our" nuclear deterrent will not work without permission from uncle sam, they go off just by lighting the blue touch paper do they? (+:
Toady Blair has finally proven what a pile of BS our special "relationship" with the USA is.
I note that it was only this year that we finally made the last payment to the fuckers for what we owed them from ww2
Nice hair though....
PCM: yep USA=those fuckers
I'm sure Geo3 would've approved(-:
I do
Wot harvest, all we grow now are day-glow strawberies and the yellow flower stuff, appropriately called rape seed, which makes you sneeze when you drive along the M4.
Maybe the French will grow sun flowers when they take over...we could all paint fields of them...bless....
To clear something up: we don't need or require US permission or assistance to fire the missiles. But we do need US cooperation to periodically maintain the missiles because, surprise, they are maintained in the US. If the US decided it was going to stop helping us with that aspect of the deterrent, we'd need to develop our own systems for maintaining them from the ground up. But they're our missiles, they can be targeted and fired without any US technical assistance, and they're only a NATO asset for as long as we say they are.
Yeah, we could fire our missiles at the French, and blow them all up. Then they could fire their missiles at us, and blow us all up.
Problem solved! What a great system to spend £25 billion pounds on.
Moko,
I assume by "retreating troopship" you mean the ARA General Belgrano. Couple of points of dispute with you on that one:
Firstly troopships generally do not carry lots of fuckoff big guns (Wiki has her compliment of weaponry as: 15*6inch guns, 8*5inch guns plus assorted missile systems). This is infact a characteristic of a WARship. A TROOPship is, generally, a large passenger boat without the nice resterants, duty free shops and discos. Another pointer that she wasn't a troopship is the fact that her captain, Hector Bonzo, is on record as saying his ship was part of a planned naval operation against the British taskforce at sea.
It may surprise you to know that sailors are generally unhappy to go into action when their ships are crowded with troops. Pongos get in the way aboard ship and do stupid things like pushing big red buttons marked "don't push this button" at the wrong moment. In peacetime this is simply annoying - in a battle it is suicide.
Secondly, as noted above, the Belgrano was part of a planned two pronged attack by the Argentine Navy. This was a co-ordinated operation with the Belgrano being the main component of the Southern Force. The Northern Force was built around the aircraft carrier, ARA 25o de Mayo. But the carrier found herself with insufficient windspeed over the deck to launch its airstrike at the planned time, the operation was postponed. To prevent herself sailing slap bang into the Britsh taskforce without air support the Belgrano reversed course. She was killing time while the Argentine admirals made new plans and waited for enough wind to allow the airstrike to launch.
Regardless as to which direction she happened to be pointing, the ARA General Belgrano was a warship of a declared enemy engaged in operations against a British fleet at sea. Sinking her was as legitimate an act of war as the bombing of the Sheffield or the sinking of the Bismarck (she was also heading for home when the Royal Navy caught up with her -should we have left her alone as well?).
Since you are obviously of the leftie persuasion perhaps to your mind the only "fair" naval actions are those of the Red Banner Fleet. An organisation whose heroic actions include the sinking of the Gustloff - an unarmed refugee ship carrying nearly 8000 people away (that terrible word again) from the advancing Red Army.
If you're going to comment on naval operations please at least do the memory of the participants (of both sides) the credit of being factually correct.
RM
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